What? Before you know it, some misguided jury will be telling us that the word cracka (as in “creepy a** cracka”) ends in -er!

On Tuesday, a Manhattan federal jury rejected arguments by lawyers for a black Harlem employment-agency boss that it was all right for him to use the n-word in the work place.

The New York Post reports that Rob Carmona, president of STRIVE East Harlem, was ordered to pay former employee Brandie Johnson $280,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for his repeated use of the racial slur to defame her.

“I was offended. I was hurt. I felt degraded. I felt disrespected,” Johnson, a single mother, testified regarding what her lawyer called a “four-minute n***er tirade” over her on-the-job conduct and attire. In a 2012 rant that Johnson captured on tape, Carmona can be heard telling her and another unidentified employee:

Both of you are n***ers … You all act like n***ers all the time … and n***ers let their feelings rule them.

Johnson’s attorney, Marjorie M. Sharpe, told a jury comprised of eight whites, one black and one other dark-skinned man that the race made no difference when the n-word is uttered:

When you use the word n***er to an African-American, no matter how many alternative definitions that you may try to substitute with the word n***er, that is no different than calling a Hispanic by the worst possible word you can call a Hispanic, calling a homosexual male the worst possible word that you can call a homosexual male

The case appears to set a precedent on what many view as a double standard over use of the n-word — that it’s racist if uttered by whites but culturally acceptable when used by blacks in music or when speaking to one another.

This could make for a good starting point in the conversation of race the president keeps telling us we need to have.

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.